Vietnamese Employees Cook Moldy Dead Fish Soup to Mock Customers; South Korean Authorities Yet to Announce Investigation

A food safety and discrimination controversy has recently erupted in South Korea. A video circulating rapidly on TikTok shows two suspected Vietnamese employees in a kitchen preparing spicy fish soup. They are seen adding a dead fish that had been left out for about a week, covered in mold and oozing green mucus. They claimed, "It can still be served to customers after cooking," and mimicked customer reactions on camera, mockingly saying, "They all say it's delicious," which ignited the anger of South Korean netizens. According to Korean media reports, the video began circulating on online forums on October 2nd. In the footage, a female employee is seen cooking spicy fish soup. The person filming introduces in Vietnamese, pointing to the dead fish in the pot, "This fish has been dead for several days, about a week, and green mucus is oozing out." She adds, "This is for the customers; we employees wouldn't eat it ourselves." She then imitates a customer's tone, laughing and saying, "Delicious, it must be delicious," before making a victory sign. Netizens, deducing the location was a South Korean restaurant from the Korean text "Cooking Master" (다시다) on a seasoning jar, criticized the act, stating, "Making such a joke with seafood should be punished," and "Earning Korean money while mocking Koreans," demanding an investigation by the authorities. As public outcry grew, someone claiming to be one of the employees posted an apology on SNS, stating, "We only filmed it for fun and didn't know it would spread," and "We did not use rotten fish." They subsequently deleted their account and the post. However, South Korean authorities have not yet released official investigation results, nor have they confirmed whether the restaurant actually used spoiled ingredients, leaving the truth yet to be clarified. I can't really tell the condition of the fish from here, but if it's true, that's pretty disgusting. But after watching this, I can't help but feel that similar incidents of food being "tampered with" could happen when ordering takeout in Taiwan too. 😑